Modern Indian family in the age of hurt sensibilities: Lessons from literature and art

An institution that exists between the private and the public, family becomes an important marker in the analysis of a society or a nation. Artists and writers have always watched family curiously as it holds many elements that feed their creativity and ideologies. At least a decade back Arundhati Roy’s The God Of Small Things, Khushwant Singh’s The Company of Women and Vivan Sundaram’s digital photomontages dealing with the Shergil family presented some real/fictional modern Indian families. The families in question were heterosexual and yet they ended up hurting Indian sensibilities.